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Name: Mary Beth

Occupation: City Hall

Residence: South Buffalo

What do you think of the Legislature’s relatively quick rejection of the proposal and the consequent denial of a countywide vote on the matter? Well, I’m disappointed they didn’t ask us, the voters, if we even wanted to have it represented and brought to a vote. I think maybe they should have asked us if it should have been brought to the table to begin with. Whether I would ultimately go for it or not, I don’t know because we were never given any choice. It seems like it came up out of the blue and it was gone before we even knew it was here.

Do you think the addition of a county manager would help reduce patronage or simply expand an already inflated government? Why? Like I said, I don’t know if I would go for it because it just sounds like you’re putting more positions up top. You’re just spending more money on the top-heavy government that’s there already.

Would you support the addition of a bipartisan county manager to assist in handling the daily duties of the county executive? I really don’t know. They would have to spell it out a little bit more explicitly as to what he’s going to do and how that’s going to help with the county executive position. And if these duties are being taken away from the county executive, then what is he doing?

Where would you like to see more of the county’s budget money spent? Services. People need their services. There’s a big exodus out of New York State but we happen to have a lot of services, and there’s people who need those services who come here. They don’t leave—they come here. People who can afford to pay for the services need to pay for the services.

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Name: Mike Shanahan

Occupation: NYS Employee

Residence: Amherst

What do you think of the Legislature’s relatively quick rejection of the proposal and the consequent denial of a countywide vote on the matter? I think the Legislature should all be thrown out of their jobs and that we should have a county manager.

Do you think the addition of a county manager would help reduce patronage or simply expand an already inflated government? Why? I think it would help reduce patronage. We wouldn’t have all these problems with the government, because we’d have someone who could actually make decisions that aren’t based in politics.

Would you support the addition of a bipartisan county manager to assist in handling the daily duties of the county executive? Yes.

Where would you like to see more of the county’s budget money spent? Quality of life things like the roads, the parks, the libraries—things people actually use.

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Name: Tim

Occupation: M&T Bank

Residence: East Side

What do you think of the Legislature’s relatively quick rejection of the proposal and the consequent denial of a countywide vote on the matter? I think it was a misguided step to not vote it through. This county and this region have been in bad shape for so long. Is it going to make that much of a difference if it goes through or not? At least we’d see that they were trying to make a difference.

Do you think the addition of a county manager would help reduce patronage or simply expand an already inflated government? Why? It depends who was voted into the position. If you voted in somebody that was already familiar with the area then, yeah, I think it would just add to the already fat, inflated budget deficit. But if you chose somebody outside the area that’s not familiar with all the bureaucracy and all the crap that we have to go through, then I think it would be better for our government.

Would you support the addition of a bipartisan county manager to assist in handling the daily duties of the county executive? Yes I would, and I would hope that it would be somebody independent of this area.

Where would you like to see more of the county’s budget money spent? I don’t know, I think I’d like to see it spent on trying to create jobs in this area.